I can be pedantic about user acquisition.  The truth is that consumer web and mobile applications are under increasing pressure to demonstrate explosive exponential traction.  Building a great product is no longer sufficient, lest you be left with the best product in the world that no one has discovered.

As an engineer and designer by training, I didn’t always put this level of focus on traffic acquisition.  It wasn’t until we tried to build an entirely new site under the eBay brand (eBay Express) that I was forced to focus our team’s efforts on one large fundamental challenge: traffic acquisition.

Those struggles, some successful (and some not) led me to appreciate how profoundly the social web changed the metrics of distribution.  When we founded the growth team at LinkedIn in 2008, we were able to structure our thinking around user acquisition, measure it, and bend the curve significantly for the site. 

A special thanks to both Reid Hoffman and Elliot Shmukler, who both contributed significantly to my thinking on the subject.

History is Written by the Victors

History is written by the victors, and on the consumer web, victory is often defined by market distribution.  Growth does not just happen, it has to be designed into your product and service.

The following posts attempt to capture some of the fundamentals that I’ve personally found useful to structure thinking around social user acquisition, and extend those concepts from the web to mobile applications:

• The Five Sources of Traffic
• Viral Factor Basics
• Mobile Web vs. Mobile Application

Remember, Product Leaders win games.  Now let’s get started.